News outlets discuss findings from a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examining prepregnancy weight and weight gain among pregnant women in India and sub-Saharan Africa. ANI/Huffington Post India: 40 Percent Indian Women Are Underweight During Pregnancy: Study “As per a new study, maternal health…

Devex: Let’s be bold for women and girls, and let’s do it together Joy Phumaphi, chair of the Global Leaders Council for Reproductive Health and executive secretary of the African Leaders Malaria Alliance “…Ensuring that women are well nourished and safe in childbirth, that adolescents are empowered to delay sex…

CDC’s “Our Global Voices”: March 3 Marks the First Annual World Birth Defects Day Diana Valencia of the CDC’s Division of Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities discusses the first annual World Birth Defects Day, which takes place March 3. She writes, “The purpose of this observance is to raise awareness…

New York Times: Pakistani Officials Issue Arrest Warrants Over Refusals of Polio Vaccine “Determined to curb Pakistan’s polio crisis, police officials in the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa said Friday that they had issued hundreds of arrest warrants for parents for refusing to vaccinate their children…” (Khan, 2/27).

The Verge: Plan to crack down on ketamine puts millions of women at risk, say campaigners “A new proposal to limit access to ketamine around the world would have a devastating effect on the health of millions of women in poorer countries, say campaigners. Although in developed nations ketamine is…

Washington Post: Letter to the Editor: Strengthen the commitment to save new mothers and newborns Carolyn Miles, president and chief executive of Save the Children USA “…[Michael Gerson’s Feb. 24 op-ed column, ‘Saving lives at the start,’] comes at a critical time when the United Nations and stakeholders are reexamining…

WHO: Bulletin of the World Health Organization The March 2015 WHO Bulletin includes news, research, and policy articles on various topics, as well as editorials on the South African census and maternal mortality and morbidity in the U.S. (March 2015).

Thomson Reuters Foundation: Food supplements crucial to reduce child malnutrition “The addition of highly nutritious foods and supplements to the diets of poor mothers could help reduce child mortality and malnutrition in Africa and South Asia, food experts said on Thursday…” (Guilbert, 2/26).

SciDev.Net: Philippines struggles to lower maternal mortality Manuel Dayrit, dean of the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health “The fight to lower maternal mortality in the Philippines turned a new leaf three years ago on 20 April 2012 with the launch of the 162 to 52 Health Summit. The…